Thanks for Having Me

I've been an avid Talk Left reader since the Rave Act days in the early 2000s, so I'm thrilled to be posting here for the first time.

A little bit about me: I've been writing about street crime and criminal justice policy for about a decade now for publications such as the Guardian, New York, and Mother Jones. I'm also the author of a couple of books: Queens Reigns Supreme--about the drug trade in Southeast Queens and a money laundering case against hip-hop record label Murder Inc--and Snitch, which exposed the dangerously unregulated world of federal cooperating witnesses and informants. [More...]

In 2007, I moved to New Orleans after living in New York City for nearly 15 years. I came to New Orleans to write my third book--about an Iraq vet involved in a big murder suicide case down here--but also because I've been completely taken with the city since I first visited way back in 2001.

I look forward to reading your posts and discussions. I learn a lot here at TL and have a ton of respect for the writers and commenters here, even though I don't always agree with them :)

Thanks, Jeralyn, for adding another new voice and for all your work in hosting and maintaining this blog. We have a lot of work to do and we need good, honest and courageous voices, perhaps now more than ever.

It sounds like you are in New Orleans. Sounds like you are also a "find" for this blog. With Democrats running things for awhile this is the time for the area of the legal concerns you have championed to take center stage. Look forward to it. I'm just about done looking back, that's for damn sure.

my 70 year old mother said one can tell how bad things are by how the citizens are treated by the police. She was not encouraged. I didn't think my mother would be the type to notice such things. In a weird way, it gave me some hope that "typical" folks were taking notice of the police state and its abuses. Welcome, Ethan; love that name.

unbefitting free American souls all stems from a garbage heap of bad misguided criminal law passed by misguided self-serving legislators and signed by misguided self-serving presidents...which is not the fault of cops.

Hell yeah, there are dirty cops and excessive cops and criminal cops...but the root of our police state problems lie in the statehouses and Washington D.C.

This is an on-going bodycount of unarmed, non-violent citizens shot & killed by police officers in this locale. The number doesn't include 3 mentally ill people who may have gone berserk & were summarily executed.

The police review board ruled that all 17 deaths were justified.

It seemed as if the swat team raid on the wrong house that resulted in the shooting of a 70+ year black man sitting in a recliner with a dangerous TV remote in his hand could have gone the other way. But it didn't.

involved until I saw those shows. Makes sense though, when they explained it.

I didn't watch The Wire when it was on regularly, but immersed myself in the DVDs via Netflix this summer. I'm not a big city girl either, but I found it fascinating, both from a pure storytelling and character standpoint and for the insight it provides into how things work (or don't work) in the 'war on drugs'.

Welcome aboard Ethan! While there is not a shortage of folks here who police the police it is definitely great to have one more. I wish you nothing but success. Of course, you are now expected to solve all of our problems, so get to work! :) (Just snarking you.)